Selling amps on eBay; best practices?

[Structo]

When I received my Carvin Belair amp which is a 2x12 combo, it was in a single walled box with styrofoam corner protectors.
The cheap white type foam.

The cab itself was in a plastic bag.

When I got it the foam corners were obliterated.
They don't remove the tubes when they ship but they had spring retainers on the EL84 tubes.
A couple of the tubes were cockeyed but still in their sockets.
I was very surprised the amp even worked when I got it.
There were no marks on the cab.
I had a microphonic tube so when I called tech support I mentioned the corner protectors and that they didn't survive.
He says, were they the solid blue ones?
I said no, they were the regular white ones.
He goes, oh, you got one of the old ones.....

In my opinion, you can't pack an amp too good.

So maybe you can make your own corner protectors but use the rigid solid type foam found at Home Depot.
Double box it unless you can find a double or triple walled box.


It amazes me that as many amps survive shipment as they do, because not all merchants pack well.
I suppose they are playing the odds and save on packing and just pay for the occasional amp that gets borked.

[KT66]

I have sold a few amps on ebay, and as far as shipping goes I agree with everyone else, pack it tight ! I shipped this amp :

http://www.classictubeamps.com/6152.html

by putting styrofoam sheets on two of the sides and cramming newspaper on the other two sides so it was really tight, and I put thick cardboard sheets on the back and front. I also packed the tubes in bubble wrap like everyone else says. Try to imagine the corner being bashed and what you could do to stop it. The amp went from LA to Maryland and was fine (UPS).

One of the real benefits of selling on Ebay is promoting your own website. The first amp I sold on Ebay I linked to my website and my traffic shot to the moon.

I reccommend that you use Heyboer or Mercury transformers, 'cause lots of people will ask and be turned off if they are not these brands. Also, from one auction you will probably pick up a couple of leads to build more amps. I would really reccommend that you have sound clips that people can hear also, use soundclick.com or other similar sites. You could put clips on your own site if you decide to go that route, I use lowesthosting.com and get 200GB a month of transfer and 100MB of storage for like 6 bucks a month. The amp I referenced above I built for a guy that found me with Yahoo.

My experience is that you meet the coolest people when you sell vintage style amps, and it is very rerwarding even if you don't make that much money at it.

Just my 3 cents.

[Ron Worley]

FedEx looks more towards what that FAA allows and doesn't allow in air freight, for instance a speaker with a heavy magnet won't bother a truck but a compass will point straight at it. I guess they fly by LORAN.

Virtually all modern aircraft use VOR stations and Intertial Reference/Navigation Systems (IRS / INS) for navigation. Avionics are certified to DO-254 environmental standards which includes Electro-Mechanical Interference (EMI), HIRF and other gremlins. The speaker in the cargo hold isn't a problem. If you had some whopping electromagnet, then maybe....

Ron

[Abstract]

Virtually all modern aircraft use VOR stations and Intertial Reference/Navigation Systems (IRS / INS) for navigation. Avionics are certified to DO-254 environmental standards which includes Electro-Mechanical Interference (EMI), HIRF and other gremlins.

Ron

I was gonna mention the same thing. I was actually gonna go into a little more detail and minutia...but you hit the majors.


lol...

[km6xz]

There have been some good suggestions but a few problem areas also.
I had a business that in the course of repairing hundreds of pro audio pieces a month and had every type of shipping failure possible here are a few comments based on electronics being shipped:

NEVER use foam peanuts for electronics particularly anything with ICs in it due to the high static charge generated on them during vibration. Besides they always alway heavy items to migrate down to be in direct contract with the outer wall of the container. They are fine for low mass items such as the bubble wrapped tubes.

UPS is fine for small items that do not self destruct when thrown. UPS used to be GREAT but after the last long strike, management shifted to self-insured so that they themselves are the only arbator of what claims would be honored. From that point on we lost many thousands of dollars in lost, damage or misdirected parcels and never got a claim settled. To this day, I am probably owed $50,000 by UPS for unpaid claims that were fully documented. Since they no longer had to worry about paying for damage, they sped up the handling and removed any requirements for care in handling. They won several way: lower insurance costs, income from insured parcels they never intended to pay on, and increased processing/handling speed.
If there is going to be tears shed if it is damaged or lost, do not ship by UPS.

The USPS is actually pretty good for parcels and a good value if it is packed correctly. Small items can be sent in free boxes they provide. Sending overseas will be faster by at least 4-5 days and there is little likelihood of it being opened for customs inspection since it has an offical USPS manifest and seal.

If it is heavy yet fragile, the best methods are custom crate or casting in foam. In either case any fragile protrusions(knobs and pots etc) a fixed protector shield should be placed and secured over it. Heavy cardboard tubing works well for pots/knobs: cut short lengths of the thick wall tubing and tape them over the pots.
Most shipping stores that do electronics shipping have foam-in-place machines that are great for dense items that need wide margin cleances to be protected. There are also small self contained packages of the foam where a setting chemical vial is boken inside to set it without a foam blowing machine. These work ok but not as good as real form-in-place. The small packets are called InstaPaks by one company. The advantage of a properly done foam in place carton is that it is reuseable, and the item remains clean.

Punctures are very common, thin plywood can protect the outer case.

If heavy sub assemblies can be removed, they need to be shipped seperately. It is MUCH safer and easier to pack a light empty cabinet in a large box than a cabinet with 45 lbs of high mass speaker /amp inside it. A small box on just the amp is easier to build up that will protect just the amp.

NEVER EVER ship power amps or rack mount equipment in a standard rack. You are guaranteeing damage unless it is a properly build rack meaning the entire weight of the item is removed from the rack ears. Rack ears are intended for setting position of an already supported unit. The unit must be secured to rugged shelving that take all the weight. I would flunk any roadie in physics if they tried to send an amp anywhere bolted into a rack by its rack ears alone. The rack rails, the amp and the container will all be damaged. It happens every day to hundreds if not thousands of musicians/ sound companies.

Speakers over a few lbs inweight should be unmounted and packed seperately supporting it by its magnet stucture, not the basket. A lot of speakers are damaged by the heavy magnet slipping in its position on the frame. Even if the speaker still works, if there was any slippage it will never sound the same. That sort of hidden damage in impossible to make a claim for.

Good tube hold-downs allow shipping an amp with tubes in place if the amp is mounted where nothing can come in contact with the tubes. A bare amp, with no cabinet should of course have its tubes replaced. Each tube needs to have a label saying which socket it came out of.

That is a good starting point on the top of my head, if there are any specific questions, that would refresh my memory of how we solved those difficult cases.

[CaseyJones]

NEVER EVER ship power amps or rack mount equipment in a standard rack. You are guaranteeing damage unless it is a properly build rack meaning the entire weight of the item is removed from the rack ears. Rack ears are intended for setting position of an already supported unit. The unit must be secured to rugged shelving that take all the weight. I would flunk any roadie in physics if they tried to send an amp anywhere bolted into a rack by its rack ears alone. The rack rails, the amp and the container will all be damaged. It happens every day to hundreds if not thousands of musicians/ sound companies.

For an example walk up to the second floor of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. I think it's on the second floor, maybe go up one more. If you don't get pulled over to Gary Rossington's Sunburst in a case right next Duane Allman's you might notice the glass case with an old Heil Sound P.A. in it. The little plaque says Heil was a pioneer in P.A., I'm not so sure they figured out rack mounting. The amps are supported by the front panels only and the front panels are bent.